World PM News Briefs For Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Hello Australia!! - Frightening details of growing attempts to sell nuclear material to terrorists - Australian anti-terror cops arrest five men after last week's killing of a police accountant - Who is responsible for mucking up the creation of a special world body for climate change refugees? - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has broken up four attempts by Eastern European gangs to sell radioactive material to Islamist terrorist groups in the Middle East.  The Associated Press says the latest case took place in February:  A smuggler sought out Islamic State to try and sell what is described as a huge cache of radioactive cesium.  It would have been enough to contaminate several city blocks, depending on how it was dispersed.  Previous busts have interrupted the sale of weapons-grade Uranium U-235.  Investigators are frustrated because the kingpins of these schemes have consistently gotten away.  Most of this trade is going on in Moldova, an impoverished backwater that missed out on economic revival after leaving the Soviet bloc in 1991.

Police arrested five people in anti-terror raids in western Sydney, with residences targeted in Merrylands, Guildford, Wentworthville, and Marsfield.  The five are described as males, aged 16 to 24 years old - the youngest, a classmate of Farhad Jabar Khalil Mohammad, the 15-year-old who shot and killed police accountant Curtis Cheng last week outside the Parramatta police HQ.  Investigators say four of the suspects arrested today are allegedly directly linked to that crime.  Three were arrested in Australia's biggest counter-terrorism raids a year ago.

The Taliban assault and the US bombing of a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital have chased all international aid agencies from the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz.  "Two UN entities, four national NGOs and 10 international NGOs have been temporarily relocated due to the ongoing conflict and unstable and fluid security situation in Kunduz," said Jens Laerke of the UN humanitarian affairs watchdog.  The US airstrike on the hospital killed 22 people.  MSF has labelled it a war crime, although the US calls it a mistake.

Burkina Faso has filed criminal charges against the leader of last month's short-lived coup d'etat.  Former leader of the presidential guard General Gilbert Diendere is accused of eleven crimes including threatening state security, murder, collusion with foreign forces, voluntary assault, and willful destruction of property.  Burkina Faso is due to hold general and presidential elections on Sunday.

Volkswagen's new chief executive Matthias Mueller says the company will begin recalling diesel cars fitted with the rogue software that causes the car to cheat on government emissions tests.  And all corrections should be finished before the end of 2016, Mueller told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.  He also told the newspaper that he believes only a few employees were involved in rigging the cars.

And In Climate Change News:

The United Nations is dropping plans to create a body that would oversee the relocations of populations escaping the ravages of Global Warming - rising sea levels, violent weather, destruction of agriculture - because of Australia's opposition to the idea.  The US, UK, and France were in favor of forming a "climate change displacement coordination facility" to provide compensation and "organized migration and planned relocation", but the government's opposition will leave the idea kicked to the curb for the world climate talks in Paris in December.  A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said, "Australia is already working closely with our Pacific partners on these important issues."  Australia has already shelled out more than $50 Million on climate resilience projects in the Pacific and contributed another $200 Million to the Green Climate Fund.

But advocates for the 250 million people who could likely be displaced by Climate Chance by 2050 say this is a world effort, and global coordination will be necessary.  "I think every country in the world responsible for CO2 emissions have some measure of responsibility for the predicament they’ve caused," said Scott Leckie, founder of the NGO Displacement Solutions.  "Top of that list is Australia, given it is the worst per capita emitter in the world," he added.

Australia's recalcitrance on the matter has stunned others who help vulnerable populations facing food and water insecurity.  "Why on earth would Australia not support a coordination facility?”" asked Phil Glendenning, president of the Refugee Council.  "The world is going to have to deal with this displacement.  We need to get on the front foot.  Australia can't say we are doing enough.  People in Kiribati and Tuvalu are the canaries in the coalmine and they are looking to Australia."